


No More Secrets

by Lampshadez



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-21 04:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lampshadez/pseuds/Lampshadez
Summary: They all agreed: no more secrets.  But Waverly, Nicole, and Wynonna all still have a few secrets they're keeping from each other.  A few weeks after the finale, those secrets still haven't come out.  What happens when they do?





	1. Chapter 1

Waverly knocked on the door to Nicole’s place, balancing a couple of bags in her other hand as she did so.  She waited a bit impatiently for Nicole to come to the door.

“Waverly…”

“Hi!” Waverly said excitedly.

“What are you doing here?”

“I know you’re catching up on paperwork all night,” Waverly said, remembering what Nicole had told her that afternoon.  “And I don’t want to be too much of a distraction.  I just thought you might like some food, and a little wine.”  She grinned, holding up the bags.

“Oh, thank you,” Nicole said.  She smiled a bit, but there was something up with her expression.  “This is really nice of you, baby.”

Waverly saw that something in Nicole’s expression.  “Did you already have dinner?  Shoot!  I thought I should maybe call first, but I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did,” Nicole said.  “Really, baby, thank you.”  She leaned forward and kissed Waverly’s cheek.

“No problem,” Waverly said.  “I can bring them inside if you want…”

“No, I’ve got it, that’s okay,” Nicole said, taking the bags with a bit of urgency.

“Okay…” Waverly looked a little disappointed, but she understood that if Nicole was busy, she was busy.  She didn’t want to push it.

“I’m sorry, Wave, I’m just really busy right now.”

“No, I get it,” Waverly said.  She smiled again.  “You’re going to be a really great sheriff one day, baby.”

Nicole smiled back.  “Thank you.”

“Even if you sometimes fall this far behind on paperwork,” Waverly laughed.

Nicole tried to laugh, but it didn’t really sound real.

Waverly noticed, but she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Okay, well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she decided.

“See you,” Nicole replied.  She watched as Waverly waved a bit, then walked away.  “Wait!”

Waverly turned.  “Yeah?”

“Come inside,” Nicole said.

“No, Nicole, you’re working.  It’s fine, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m not doing paperwork,” Nicole said. “Not for the Department, anyway.  Not exactly.”

Waverly’s brow furrowed a bit.  “Okay…”

“No more secrets, right?” she said.

“No more secrets,” Waverly agreed.

“Come inside,” Nicole said.  “I’ll explain.”

Waverly looked nervous – she felt nervous, too – and she walked back to Nicole and followed her inside.

“What’s going on?” Waverly asked.  She followed Nicole further in and saw that someone was sitting at the kitchen table.  “Who’s here?”

“Waverly.”

Dolls stepped out of the kitchen and into full view of Waverly.

“Why is Dolls here?” Waverly asked. 

“Why is Waverly here?” Dolls asked Nicole.

“We’ve been working on some cases,” Nicole said.  “Cases about demons.”

“What?”

Dolls sighed, but after he exchanged a look with Nicole, he understood what she was doing.  He agreed, it was time to let Waverly in on all this, but he didn’t love the surprise.  He nodded to her.

“Nedley’s been investigating the demon goings-on in this town for years,” Nicole said.  “And he passed that investigation on to me.”

“Why did you hide this from us?” Waverly asked.  “From me?”

Nicole’s jaw clenched for a moment.  She knew that was exactly what she was doing, but it still made her chest clench a little bit.

“I didn’t want to mix police work with Black Badge,” Nicole offered.  “That can get messy.”

“So you’re working with Dolls?”

“It became clear that we both want the same things, to get to the bottom of this,” Nicole said.  “For a few months now, we’ve been working on Nedley’s files and some of Dolls’ own investigations.”

“For a few months?” Waverly asked, shocked.

Nicole nodded, jaw clenched still.  “Yeah.  I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Waverly asked.

Dolls cleared his throat.  “I should go.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Waverly said.  “You didn’t tell me, either.  I’ve studied ancient cultures and languages, I know this town better than anyone.  If either of you needed help figuring out what the hell is going on here, you should’ve come to me.”

Dolls nodded.  “I know.”

Again, he exchanged a look with Nicole, and Waverly saw it.

“What?” she asked, not loving all these furtive communications.

“He wanted to bring you in,” Nicole admitted.  “I asked him not to.”

“So, I’m going to go,” Dolls repeated.

Waverly nodded, a bit in disbelief, and let him go.  They were silent as he left, and still silent for a few moments after he shut the door behind him.

“I thought we talked about you being overprotective…”

“We did,” Nicole said.  “And that’s not what this is.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, yes, I want to protect you.  I only called Dolls in after you…after Mictian, when I realized I could use some help.”

“And you didn’t ask me.”

“I was going to,” Nicole said.  “At first, I wasn’t, I mean.  I wasn’t going to ask anyone.  I got kicked out of Black Badge and I was pissed and I figured that if Nedley could do such a good investigation without the help of Black Badge for years, I could do it, too.”

“Nicole, you’re good at what you do, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask for help.”

“I know,” Nicole said.  “But…” she took a deep breath.  “I was worried about working with you.”

“What?”

“I want to be good at what I do,” Nicole said.  “But looking at these past few months…I don’t know, Wave.  I’ve crossed some lines I didn’t want to cross.”

“Nicole…”

“I tapped Tucker’s phone,” Nicole said.  “That’s illegal, Wave, and I shouldn’t have done it.  That’s not the kind of cop I want to be.”

“Well, there’s no point in tapping his phone now…” Waverly tried to joke, but Nicole wasn’t laughing.  “Right, not helping.”

“We talked about boundaries,” Nicole said.  “And I really, really want to respect them.  And I know that having secrets isn’t really respecting boundaries, but…”

Waverly sighed.  She took Nicole’s hand.  “Okay, look.  If you think we shouldn’t work together right now, that’s fine.  That’s a conversation that we should have.  But, for the record, I think we can work together.”

“I’m sorry I kept this from you,” Nicole said.  “I really am.”

“I kissed Rosita," Waverly admitted after a moment.

“What?” Nicole asked.  “She’s back?”

“No, a while ago,” Waverly said.  It’d been a few weeks since Alice was born, and with everything that happened right before then and everything they had to come to terms with after, the kiss didn’t really come up.  Though, Waverly knew that she had been hiding it on purpose.

“Oh,” Nicole said, and the reality sunk in that Waverly had kissed someone else.

“I’m sorry,” Waverly said.  “I’m so sorry, baby.  It was right after the DNA test results came in and I was upset and angry and a little drunk and she made me feel better.”

“So you kissed her.”

“And it was a mistake,” Waverly said.  “And I knew that it was a mistake right away, and I knew right away that I loved you.  It didn’t mean anything.”

Nicole sighed deeply.  “Okay.”

“Okay?” Waverly asked.  “That’s it?  Okay?”

“There’s been so much shit going on, there’s still a lot of things in our relationship we haven’t talked about,” Nicole said.  “I guess that includes exclusivity.”

“I didn’t kiss her because I wasn’t sure we were exclusive,” Waverly said.  “I-.”

“Waverly,” Nicole cut her off, not wanting to hear a whole lot more about why Waverly did it.  It happened, there was no changing that.  But Nicole understood that mistakes happened, even though she wasn't thrilled about it.  Even thought the idea of Waverly kissing someone else makes her want to throw up.  She understood.  “It’s okay, really.”

“Nicole…”

“It is,” Nicole said.  Waverly didn’t look convinced.  “It’s not,” Nicole laughed a bit, admitting it.  “But it will be.  It's been...a really unbelievable past few months.  But we got through those.  We'll get through all this.”

Waverly still didn’t look convinced, but she also looked like she very much loved Nicole. 

“No more secrets, right?” Nicole said.  Waverly nodded.  “Thanks for telling me.”

“You’re welcome, I guess,” Waverly said, not expecting to be thanks and in general a bit in awe of Nicole’s chill and – if Waverly was being honest – grace with this situation.

“It’s all out there now,” Nicole said.  “No one’s hiding anything.  We’re good.  We’ll figure it out.”

“I love you,” Waverly said.  “I really, really love you, Nicole Haught.”

Waverly had never been with someone before who wanted to work so hard on the relationship.  She knew that maybe (and in total accordance with her Earp-ness) she could self-sabotage, and she’d spent a lot of time trying to figure out why she kissed Rosita in the first place.  If she was being honest, it scared her how much she loved Nicole.  She knew that wasn’t an excuse and she knew that what she did was bad, but she understood why she did it.  And she knew she wasn’t going to do it again, to anyone.

“I love you, too.”

Waverly smiled.  “I’m going to go.”

“No, stay,” Nicole said.

“Nicole, you’re working…”

“Can you help me?”

Waverly looked at her and didn’t answer.

“I mean, Dolls left,” Nicole said.  “And you’re an expert.  Could you look over the stuff we have?”

“Are you sure?”

Nicole nodded.  She was sure.  “Yeah.”

Nicole was worried about working with Waverly.  She knew that she had crossed lines – the phone tap, the DNA test – and she knew she didn’t want to do that.  But she trusted herself and she trusted Waverly.  She was scared of working with Waverly, so she didn’t tell her about her investigation, but once she did know, Nicole didn’t want to keep it from her anymore.  Waverly was an expert.  Working together was a good idea, and they’d figure it out from there.

“Okay,” Waverly said.

**-WE-**

“The Cult of Bulshar,” Waverly read from the file.  “Like, Clootie?”

Nicole nodded.  “We don’t know where Clootie is, still, but all we know is in the file.  Dolls has been talking to Wynonna, she hasn't found anything either, wherever she is.”

Waverly nodded.  Nicole didn't often bring up Wynonna to Waverly - Wynonna had rode off on her motorcycle a few days after they sent Alice away, and had only said something about going to get answers.  Waverly called her every day, usually multiple times a day, but Wynonna only sometimes answered.  She texted Waverly, though, and let her know that she was alright, she just didn't want to talk.  Nicole knew Waverly was worried about her sister, and everyone felt some amount of Wynonna and Doc's pain after Wynonna sent Alice away.  Nicole didn't want to add to Waverly's share of that if she didn't need to.

Waverly inhaled sharply and dove back into the file.

“Wow,” Waverly breathed, reading through it.  “Oh my god, I know this guy.  I went to high school with him.”

“Yeah, there are a few locals in there, of both the demon and the human variety,” Nicole said.  “Listen, Wave, there are a lot of people you might know in there.”

“Yeah?”

“Your mom is in there.”

Waverly looked up from the file.  “What?”

“We don’t have much on her,” Nicole said.  “But we know she was involved in the Cult when she was in town.”

“What else do you have on her?”

“Not a lot,” Nicole said.  “Nedley had a few leads on her; she was involved in a few circles that had ties to demons in town.”

“Like what?”

Nicole cleared her throat, looking through the files stacked on her table.  “Let’s see…”

“You know what, I’ll find out eventually,” Waverly said.  “She probably was just in those circles because of Ward.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Nicole said.

“Is there anything else on her?”

“No,” Nicole said.  “No, she pops up in some of Nedley’s old files, but nothing recent in town.”

Waverly chuckled a bit.  “Yeah, I could’ve told you that.”

“We can find her, you know,” Nicole offered, a bit timid about it.

“They didn’t even find her when Ward died,” Waverly said.  “I don’t think she wants to be found.”

“Still,” Nicole said.  The people that Nedley had connected Michelle to, a few of them had warrants out for their arrest.  Nicole could go the legal route and try to get Michelle in on a subpoena or something.

“I don’t want to talk to her,” Waverly said.  “She left, she didn’t come back.  If she wanted me to know why, she would’ve told me.  I don’t want to look for answers I’m not going to get.”

Nicole nodded.  She took Waverly’s hand for a second. 

“Alright,” Waverly said, wanting to get back on track.  She started looking through the files again.  “What else is there?”

**-WE-**

Waverly came back to the homestead the next morning and saw Wynonna’s motorcycle outside.  She parked her Jeep and practically ran to the door.

“Wynonna?” she called coming in.  “Shoot, sorry if you’re sleeping or something.”

“Hello?” came a familiar voice from the kitchen.

Waverly furrowed her brow a bit, recognizing the voice but not completely placing it.  It sounded familiar and something in Waverly’s had made her associate it with Wynonna and with home.  She could see the places she heard that voice and see the people she heard it around but for the life of her, she couldn’t place it.

“Wynonna?”

“She’s in the shower.”

Waverly looked over toward the bathroom, just noticing that she could hear the shower running.  She walked into the kitchen and saw the person, and it suddenly it all clicked.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Michelle looked at Waverly, her youngest daughter.  She looked so different from how she did when they last were face to face, but Michelle recognized her still.

“Wynonna asked me to come.”


	2. Chapter 2

“What the hell do you mean, ‘Wynonna asked you to come?’” Waverly asked.  “How did she find you?”

“Waverly…”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Waverly, baby girl, let’s sit down-.”

“Don’t call me that,” Waverly said.  She hadn’t noticed that she’d been backing away until she backed into the edge of the doorway.

“Let’s talk,” Michelle tried again.  “There’s a lot to discuss.”

“I don’t want to discuss anything with you,” Waverly said, shocking herself with the edge in her tone.  “You should go.”  She felt herself leaning against the doorway, like she was trying to get herself out of the room, but she stood up, confident. 

“You got tall.”

“Wynonna’s got, like, five inches on me.”

“She got tall, too.”

Waverly looked away, not wanting any of this.  She didn’t want that warm feeling in her chest that she was suddenly getting, of one of her parents noticing her.  She hadn’t had that feeling in seventeen years.

“Yeah, well,” Waverly said.  “A lot’s changed in the past seventeen years.”

Michelle nodded and, for the first time ever, Waverly saw her mother not knowing what to say.

That sent a wave of a different feeling through Waverly’s chest, and again, she didn’t want it.  She didn’t know what to do with it.  She buried it and let anger take it’s place.

“Can you leave?” Waverly asked.  Her tone was softer, but she knew that a soft tone couldn’t exactly make words like those really be soft.  For some reason though, all these memories flashed through her mind of standing in that kitchen and asking her mom for something – for help tying her shoes, for a glass of juice, for a bedtime story.  Then she remembered when she was little and she’d walk into the kitchen out of habit and expect to find someone who could give her an answer or help her, but finding no one.

Michelle nodded.

“I’ll go get coffee and breakfast,” Michelle said.  “There’s no food in this house, you girls should have something to eat.”

Waverly nodded once, but wouldn’t look at her.  She looked down at the floor as Michelle left.

**-WE-**

Waverly wasn’t sure what she did while she waited for Wynonna to get out of the shower.  It must’ve only been five minutes, tops, but it felt like ages.

Finally, she saw Wynonna walk out of the bathroom in just a towel.

“Hey,” she said.  “You’re home.”

“You’re home,” Waverly said.  “Are you okay?”

Wynonna nodded.  “Yeah.”

Waverly looked her over for a second.  Wynonna looked exhausted – there were still bags under her eyes.  And there was a sadness still to her, an underlying expression on her face that someone who knew her well could recognize.

Still, Waverly accepted the answer.

“You brought company.”

“Where’d she go?”

“She went to get coffee and food,” Waverly said.

“Yeah, there’s no food here, Waves,” Wynonna said.  “What, did you spend the past three weeks at Nicole’s?”

“Not all of it,” Waverly said.  “But that is so not the headline here, Wynonna.”

“Right,” Wynonna admitted.  “Can I get dressed first?”

Waverly rolled her eyes a bit, but stepped aside so Wynonna could get to her room.

To her credit, Wynonna got dressed quickly.

“Okay,” Wynonna said.  “Where to start?”

“Is this where you’ve been for three weeks?” Waverly asked.  “With her?”

“Most of it, yeah,” Wynonna said.  “I took the long way to get to her, so that took a while, but, yeah.”

“How did you know where she was?”

Wynonna looked at her little sister like she knew the answer was about to hurt her.

“Wynonna.”

“We’ve been talking for a while.”

“Wynonna-!”

“She found me when I got back to town,” Wynonna said.  “Did you know the landline here still works?”

Waverly gave her a stern look (though “stern” might be a bit too mild a word, because Waverly was _pissed_ ) and Wynonna continued.

“Anyway,” Wynonna went on.  “She called me and I didn’t want to talk to her at first, either.  But she can help.”

“Yeah?  How?”

“She’s been looking into the curse,” Wynonna explained.  “The heir has to stay here, right?  That’s why we never had any family vacations,” Wynonna tried to joke again, but Waverly still was not having it. “The heir has to stay here, the homestead is safe and demons are drawn to here, but Mama’s not an heir.  She’s not an Earp, she’s not tied to here like heirs are.”

“Yeah, she made that clear.”

“Waves, that’s why she left,” Wynonna said.  “She left so she could find a way to break the curse.”

“No, she left because Ward was an asshole.”

“I mean, yeah,” Wynonna said.  She chose her words very carefully.  “But that’s why she left _us_.  She left us, you, me, and Willa, here so she could go find answers.”

“That’s what she told you?” Waverly asked.  “Yeah, right.  That’s a nice story.”

“It’s true.”

“Okay, yeah, sure, maybe she knows stuff about the curse, but, really?  If she were trying to help us break the curse, why wouldn’t she talk to us?  Why wouldn’t she tell us that was where she’d gone?”

“Ward didn’t want her to go,” Wynonna said, again picking her words carefully.  “He _was_ an asshole.  She said that if she contacted us after she left, he’d find her.”

Waverly could see the logic there.  She could feel other emotions try to take the place of the anger that was filling her chest.  She didn’t want it to.  The anger was…it wasn’t necessarily _comfortable,_ but it was familiar.  It was safe.  It was something she could assign blame to and control.

“What about after Ward died, then?” Waverly asked.  “Why not contact us then?  Why not come get us?”

“Revenants got Willa killed, do you think anything could stop her from finding a way to break the curse after that?”

“So, what, she got to go demon hunting while her children were stuck living with Gus and going off to juvy?”

Wynonna didn’t have an immediate answer to that, and it took Waverly a moment to get why.  Then she wanted all that anger to go away, because it was suddenly aimed at herself.

“Wait…”

“Gus isn’t that bad, right?” Wynonna asked.  Waverly had said just minutes before that Wynonna was significantly taller than her, but in that moment she seemed small.  “I mean, you didn’t go to juvy.”

“No, I didn’t,” Waverly said.  “Gus is great.  She’ll be great, Wynonna, she’ll be fine.”

Waverly didn’t say Alice’s name, but they both knew who she was talking about.

“Look, I didn’t get it either,” Wynonna said.  “When she first said it, I didn’t understand.  But I do, now.  She spent these past seventeen years trying to find a way to break the curse, so we’d be okay.  And we’re breaking this fucking curse, Waverly.”

“I know,” Waverly said, and she did.  She really firmly believed that she and Wynonna would be the ones to break the curse.  “So, she found a way to break the curse?”

“No,” Wynonna admitted after a moment.  Waverly sighed.  “But she’s close, Waves.  Closer than us.”

“Well, I sure hope she is, she’s had way more time at it than we have.”

“We have time,” Wynonna said.  “Clootie’s trapped in that mine, we just need to figure out what to use to put him down for good.”

“Does she know that?  That Clootie’s trapped?”  Waverly wasn’t sure how to refer to Michelle – calling her “Mama” felt strange, but using her name felt wrong.  She had no problem using either before, but that was before she was back.

“Yeah,” Wynonna said.  “She knows a lot.”

“But not everything?”

Wynonna shook her head.

Waverly nodded.  “Well, I won’t tell her anything.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m glad you’re back,” Waverly said.

Wynonna smiled a bit, and it was the first Waverly had seen her sister smile in weeks.  It felt good, for both of them.

“Yeah, it’s good to be back.”

Waverly smiled and pulled her sister in for a hug. 

“And I’m sorry I didn’t give you a heads up that I was bringing her back,” Wynonna said. 

“Yeah, that would’ve been nice,” Waverly laughed a bit.  “So, what, you just finally called her back and then you went to see her?”

“Pretty much,” Wynonna said, pulling back from the hug.  “She started calling when I came out here, and I just ignored it.  Then…yeah, then lately I’ve been a whole new break-the-curse kick.”

“And you just went out to see her?” Waverly shook her head, impressed.  “Damn, Wynonna.  I know I don’t say this enough but you’re…you’re brave as hell.  I don’t think I would’ve been able to go see her after seventeen years of radio silence, not even knowing why she left.”

“Yeah.”

“Where was she?”

“Up North,” Wynonna said.  “Tiny town, not even on a map.  But her place, it’s intense.  She’s got this ridiculously fast internet and she’s got all sorts of books.  She’s constantly researching.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, it was something,” Wynonna said.  “I mean, all this time I knew she was researching, but I didn’t think she’d be that into it.”

Waverly nodded a bit, then caught herself.  “Wait, all this time?”

Wynonna’s face fell, like she knew she slipped up.

“Like, the past few months?”

Wynonna’s jaw clenched.  “More like the past seventeen years…”

“What?!”

“Waverly, I’m sorry-.”

“You knew what she was doing this whole time?” Waverly asked.  “That’s what you’re saying right now?”

“Yes.”

“Wynonna, what the fu-?”

“Right before she left, like literally that day, she sat me and Willa down and told us she was going to break the curse,” Wynonna admitted, the words flowing freely now.  “She told us she had to leave to do that, and that she couldn’t tell us where she was going.”

“This whole time, you knew why she left,” Waverly said quietly, in disbelief.  “This whole time?!  For as long as I could remember, she was gone and I had no idea why!  She left us, and I had no idea why!”

“I know-.”

“You kept that a secret for seventeen years?” Waverly asked.  “You knew why she left that whole time and didn’t tell anyone-.”

“I didn’t think she’d do it!” Wynonna said.  “They locked me up in a hospital for believing in the curse, I was scared to tell anyone she believed it, too!”

“Even me?” Waverly asked.

Wynonna wasn’t yelling anymore.  She’d never yelled at Waverly before, and she’d not sure this counted as yelling _at_ her as much as yelling during a conversation with her.  But she could feel it leading towards yelling at Waverly, and she didn’t want that.

“The curse got half our family killed,” Wynonna said.  “And look what it did to me, even when we were kids.  I wasn’t going to tell you then, no.”

Waverly could understand that, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to, yet.

“And then I came back to town, and I hated this fucking curse, Waverly, and you were already so deep in it.  I don’t know, Wave, I just didn’t think I should tell you.  You hate her.”

“I don’t-,” Waverly started.  Gus’s words from months prior rang in her head – _you were always an honest kid._ “I don’t want to see her.  She’s going to be back soon, I’m going to go.”

Wynonna nodded.  “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Certain things were left unclear after the finale, so I'm making the following assumptions - Nicole and Dolls are working together on Nicole's/Nedley's investigation on demon shenanigans in Purgatory and that look they gave each other at the end of the finale means that they haven't told anyone else about it (prior to this fic); and that Wynonna didn't tell Waverly that she talked to Michelle. Wynonna's not in this chapter but she will be featured a lot in the next chapter, though this fic is predominantly about Waverly since those secrets are being kept from her. (sidebar, I totally get Wynonna keeping things quiet about their mom but I don't know why Dolls and Nicole would hide their investigation from Waverly, who had a degree that would be very useful to this investigation and also spent all of season 1 wanting/asking to have a seat at the demon-hunting table??? and it seems like Jeremy doesn't know either, and he would also be very helpful)  
> Anyway, please let me know what you think! Thanks!!


End file.
